At a time when the defence ministry was considering his date of birth issue, Army Chief General V K Singh had approached the prime minister's office seeking its intervention in the matter.
The PMO, however, didn't take any view and just forwarded his petition filed in April to the defence ministry for further action.
"The ministry of defence had received on April 21, 2011, an unsigned petition submitted by Gen V K Singh, Chief of Army Staff to the prime minister's office," reveal defence ministry documents accessed through an RTI application.
In response to an RTI application, the defence ministry said the unsigned petition submitted by Gen Singh to the PMO were put up before the ministry of law and justice along with other available documents to get an opinion on the issue of changing his date of birth from May 10, 1950 to May 10, 1951.
The document reveals that the army chief had approached Defence Minister A K Antony directly only on May 25, more than a month after he sought PMOs intervention in the matter.
The defence ministry had subsequently decided to consider May 10, 1950, as Gen Singh's age, as an effect of which he will retire in May next year.
The ministry had twice sought an opinion from the law ministry to decide on the issue. The ministry on July 21 issued an order to the army headquarters informing it about its decision to treat May 10, 1950, as the army chief's date of birth.
The army chief has now submitted a statutory complaint to the defence minister against the decision taken by the ministry.
